Given the Demographics of Emotional Divorce of Spouses – How to Minimize It, Using Structural Equation Modeling: A Case Study in Egypt

Abstract

This study identifies eight factors: age, gender, education, occupation, place of residence, duration of marriage, number of previous marriages and number of children within the marriage, which can affect the occurrence of emotional divorce. These eight factors are explored through nine dimensions: emotional, intellectual, social-recreational, psychological, temporal, sexual, spiritual, physical and economic. Exploratory and Confirmatory Factor Analysis and path diagrams are used to extract emotional divorce from the eight factors. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) is run to verify the above factor structure and evaluate the influence of each variable on emotional divorce. The corresponding beta coefficients in the regression equations reveal that education is the most dominant predictor of emotional divorce, with a 5% level of significance. It is equally predominant through seven of the nine dimensions (all excluding temporal). It is concluded that demographic factors such as age, gender and education levels play an important role in people's day-to-day lives, particularly within marriages.